Raw Bone (11 page)

“It was thicker ’n molasses in January,” Freddy said. “And he talked so fast that no one but Billy could understand him.”

Aziz was eyeing the second half of the tart. MacNeice slid it toward her without comment.

“Duguald was friendly, though, always joking … had an eye for the waitresses, but I never saw anything happen. He was just looking and smiling at them like most of us do, but when an old man smiles at a girl, he’s just a harmless old man.”

“How old do you think Duguald was?”

“Oh, I’d say maybe mid-thirties. So he had more reason to look at the girls than I did.” Anticipating the next question, Freddy added, “And I never seen the girl from the yacht club at the bar either.”

“So where did Duguald go when he left the bar?”

“All I recall is Billy saying, ‘Duggie had to ship out’—I remember that, you see, because that means somethin’ to me—and I asked him somethin’ like, ‘Duguald’s a seaman then?’ ” He finished his coffee, leaving the question dangling for several seconds. “Billy says, ‘Oh, Duggie’s bin lots a things.’ ”

“Tall, short, heavy?”

“Solid. Yeah, I think that best describes him. You know, I never heard his last name or, for that matter, where he came from or where he was going. One day he’s there, next he’s gone. The place is like that eh, people comin’ and goin’ all the time. Except for the customers; we’re there for the beer or the Fish ’n’ chips. As regular as stars at night.”

“You’re a poet, Mr. Dewar,” said Aziz.

Freddy flushed and tapped his fingers on the table like he was playing the piano.

MacNeice offered him cab fare back to the bar, but Freddy said he preferred to walk, as the heavy rain had kept him inside the day before.

“For now, keep this conversation confidential, Freddy,” MacNeice said.

“Yes, sir. Loose lips sink ships.” He stood, shook their hands, pulled his coat on and waved goodbye to the young waitress.

MacNeice finished his coffee and got up to pay.

“No need,” Aziz said. “I paid when I picked up the tart. Worth every penny, too.”

Melody Chapman ushered the two detectives to her office, taking the back route through the kitchen corridor so the yacht club members wouldn’t see them. She was a slim woman in her late thirties who smiled easily—but too often. Smartly dressed in a pale blue suit, she waved for them to sit down opposite her desk. The office was modest modern, with touches of the old world that presumably made the clients comfortable. There were photographs and paintings, all of ships Dundurn Harbour hadn’t seen for hundreds of years, if ever. MacNeice walked over to study them. The beautifully framed reproductions included a stirring painting of the
Bluenose
, raked over at an angle and tearing south along the east coast.

“Do you know sailing ships, detective?” Melody’s name was apt; her voice floated merrily through an octave.

“Sadly, no. But I like to look at them.”

“How long have you been manager here at the yacht club?” Aziz asked.

“Five years, and before that I was assistant manager for three.” She flicked something invisible from her sleeve.

Aziz retrieved the photocopy from an envelope. “DI Vertesi already presented this photo to you—do you recall?” Aziz waited for Chapman to look at it before setting it down on the envelope.

“Of course I recall,” Chapman said. “I told him I didn’t recognize her, though I did say
she may have been a renter, a boat renter I—”

“Oh my.”

Both women turned to look at MacNeice. He seemed captivated by a painting of the British ship HMS
Victory
in 1803—according to its brass plaque—full sail against a windswept sky, three decks of cannon at the ready, smashing through an impossibly blue sea. “It would be wise for you to look at the photo again, Ms. Chapman.” He continued to study the painting.

“I, I don’t understand …” Melody’s hands dropped to her lap.

Aziz tapped the photo in front of her. “Detective Superintendent MacNeice believes you do know her, that she worked here at the yacht club and that you were likely the one who hired her.”

MacNeice came back to the desk and sat down beside Aziz. Melody Chapman smiled nervously as he looked at her, expressionless and waiting.

No one said anything for nearly a minute. Melody lowered her eyes to the photocopy and kept them there. Then Aziz said, “Perjury carries significant consequences. If found guilty, the cost to you will be this office, this job and, I suspect, any job remotely like it in the future.”

Melody raised her hand in surrender. The lyrical bounce was gone when she spoke. “Her name is Anniken Kallevik. She was a foreign national doing a working tour of Canada. She’d applied for and accepted a position here as wait staff for the restaurant during the summer months only, June 1 to September 21. It’s the busiest season for the club.” Having gained some control of her voice, she turned her eyes to her hands now folded in front of her. “Anni was going to travel across country and take up a similar post in British Columbia, at Whistler.” Melody swung around in her chair and opened a filing cabinet drawer, retrieving a fat folder. Laying it on top of the dead woman’s photo, she flipped through until she came to an
employment application. She took it out, closed the folder and placed it before Aziz.

MacNeice had turned to stare at the painting, attempting to contain an impatient fury inflamed by hearing that the body from Cootes Bay was known to this woman. “But Ms. Kallevik didn’t leave in September, did she?”

“No. Two of our full-time staff quit the club and we were short, so I asked her to stay on and she agreed. Her Whistler resort position wasn’t going to begin until December 1, and she was willing to help us out.”

Aziz looked up from her notes. “You lied twice about knowing her. Why?”

“I don’t know.” Melody shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, she worked for us and she was very good, but then she left and I just feel that …”

“You felt like that was the end of your obligation, and that what happened to her afterwards was not your concern nor that of the RDYC—does that about sum it up, Ms. Chapman?” MacNeice said.

Her face flushed, and she looked first to Aziz then back to MacNeice. “Yes.”

MacNeice held a hand out for the employment application. Chapman passed it over as if it was burning her fingers. Stapled to the corner was a photocopy of her passport. She was smiling. Unusual to see a smile in a passport photo, he thought. Glancing through the record, he saw that Kallevik was twenty-six and had graduated with a master’s degree in biology from the University of Stavanger in 2013. Since then she’d been travelling the world, working in the hospitality industry. Her address in Dundurn was listed as the Global Youth Hostels, a youth hostel on Ferguson near King William.

Melody, who had been watching him, tried to find a good spin on things. “I was trying to save the club from embarrassment. There was nothing we could contribute other than her name,
and I thought there was no reason to drag the club into it. Anni was a hard worker, cheerful, always on time and yet, like most temporary staff, she kept to herself.”

“Did anyone come calling for her at the end of her shift?” Aziz asked.

“Sometimes a young man, also from Norway. She had been travelling with him. He was working somewhere nearby, but I don’t know where.”

“You see—there was something else you could contribute,” MacNeice said. “What did he look like?”

“He looked like a hockey player, kind of wide shoulders, tall, blond.” She couldn’t recall anything else about him.

“We’ll want to interview any staff that were here during Ms. Kallevik’s stay and we may extend that to your members.”

“Whatever we can do to help. I’m truly—” Melody stopped when MacNeice abruptly stood up.

He didn’t want to hear her apology. He picked up the employment record and photo of Anni Kallevik—previously known only as “the corpse”—and left the office. He crossed the hall and entered the members only area of the club, where he was sure to be noticed before leaving the building.

Aziz found him waiting under the canopy, his hands driven into the pockets of his overcoat, the photo and form tucked under his arm.

Her cellphone rang. She took the call, but the wind was too strong to hear the caller—Vertesi—so she stepped back inside the building, where a middle-aged man told her, “No cellphones in the club, miss.”

Aziz pulled the badge off her hip and showed it to him. “Go ahead, Michael,” she said as
the man backed off.

“The DNA results are back. Nicholson is the man in the wagon.”

“Thanks, Michael. We’ll go straight to the house.” Aziz hung up.

MacNeice had been watching her from outside and held the door for her. “Nicholson’s a match,” he said.

Abandoned at four by his mother, Dylan Nicholson was now an orphan at sixteen.

Aziz was on the sofa, next to Dylan, while MacNeice sat opposite in a chair. The aunt seemed determined to busy herself in the kitchen with making tea, though none had been offered or requested. It was clear that whatever the news was, she didn’t want to hear it. Dylan leaned forward, elbows on his knees, like he was waiting for the coach to coach. MacNeice said, “Dylan, your father has been killed. He died in an explosion. We don’t know who did this or why, but we’ll do our best to find out, I promise you.”

The boy took a deep breath to steady himself. “The explosion in Gage Park … was that my dad?”

MacNeice said, “Yes.”

Dylan nodded several times and turned to Aziz as if he wanted to make sure she’d heard too. She reached out, put a hand gently on his shoulder. His nodding slowed but didn’t stop. Aziz slid closer and put her arm around him.

At that gesture, perhaps the only time a woman had held him that tenderly since he was a toddler, he leaned into Aziz. His mouth opened and a line of spittle fell from the corner. Dylan wasn’t aware of it until it reached his hand. He raised his arm and wiped the sleeve of the Indiana sweatshirt across his face, and then, slowly, he pulled the hood over his head. Moments later, tears spilled down his cheeks. Aziz turned to MacNeice with tears in her own eyes but stayed put, her arm around Dylan.

From the kitchen came a muffled shriek. MacNeice went in to find Dylan’s aunt clutching the kitchen counter as the kettle’s whistle blew. He turned off the burner, moved the kettle to one side and, taking her by the shoulders, led her to a chair at the kitchen table. He waited until she’d composed herself enough to look at him.

At last, she said, “So Dave’s gone?”

“Dave’s gone.”

“How, how could this happen … to such a decent man?”

“I will tell you all we know. But first—and I apologize for being so blunt when this is so brutally fresh for you—my concern is for that young man in there.”

“Dyl … Oh God. Dylan so worships his dad.”

Both of them could hear the boy, who was now sobbing. Aziz’s voice was soft and low, trying to comfort him.

Doris was strangling the tea towel.

“Right about now, Ms. Nicholson, Dylan is coming to grips with the fact that he is alone in this world—just as his world is opening up to him as a young man. I’m certain you believe, as his father clearly did, that he’s a wonderful boy with a bright future.”

“Oh … yes. Dave wants—”

“I’m sorry to interrupt you, Ms. Nicholson, but I want to know if you will adopt him.”

“But—”

“Let me finish.” He put a hand gently on her arm. “If there is no family willing to take him into their lives, Dylan will go into foster care. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Of course, but—”

“I don’t know you or your circumstances, but in the next few minutes, it will dawn on
him that he could soon be homeless. It’s not my place to ask you to do anything, but there is no one else. You are his remaining family on his dad’s side.”

“I want to do what’s right …”

MacNeice stood up, went to the counter, poured hot water from the kettle into the waiting mug, soaking the tea bag until the water was dark, then lifting it out and dropping it into the sink. “Do you take milk, sugar?”

“Just milk … thank you.”

He took the carton of milk from the fridge, poured some into the mug, stirred the tea and put the mug down in front of her. “In a half-hour or so, there’ll be a team here from Children’s Services. Initially, they’ll provide crisis counselling for Dylan, but they’ll also want to know who’s responsible for him now that his father is gone. If you don’t step up, he’ll be placed in the care of the Children’s Aid. From there he’ll go into foster care until he’s eighteen. Think about that, please, Doris.”

He left her there and went back into the living room, where Dylan was still on the sofa, his hooded head down on his knees, his shoulders trembling. Aziz had a hand on his back.

MacNeice sat quietly, waiting patiently until the boy surfaced. Aziz’s eyes never left his.

In time, they heard a car approach outside. MacNeice stood to look out as the dark grey sedan stopped, backed up and parked. Dylan heard the car too. He lifted his head, peering out from the hood, wiping his nose and eyes on his sleeve. He slid the hood back—his face was deep red and his hair looked as if he’d stuck his finger in a live socket.

Aziz removed her hand from his back and rubbed her eyes, as if weary from a long day.

Dylan took three deep breaths, and asked, at last, “What happened to my dad?”

“Your father was bound with tape to a wagon and left in the park.” MacNeice spoke softly and slowly. “He couldn’t speak or move. Emergency Services arrived and tried to free him. What they didn’t know, and your dad couldn’t tell them, was that there was a grenade rigged to the tape. When they tried to free him, the grenade blew up.”

The boy seemed stunned by what he was hearing, but he didn’t dissolve into tears. He took a long, deep breath and asked, “Why would someone do something so cruel to someone who never harmed anybody?”

“That’s what we will find out, Dylan.”

They could hear footsteps on the front porch stairs now. Dylan looked from MacNeice to Aziz.

“That’s Children’s Services, Dylan. They’re here to help,” Aziz said.